A Toast to the Steelwater

On this trip to the Steelwater, we meet Carrion-Master Gro'Ahl McHrek and his favorite drinking buddy, Mzshek, the head of a fallen golem. They never tell the story, but they come in together once a fortnight and Gro'Ahl drinks a toast to an incredibly long list of fallen comrades from the battle where the two of them met. Lots of speculation surrounds their joint appearances: Gro'Ahl created the golem. Gro'Ahl destroyed the golem. Mzshek slaughtered every one in Gro'Ahl's army and then the Carrion-Master stole the golem's head.

Whatever the story is, once every couple weeks, Gro'Ahl stumbles in, already drunk,
goes to the cave room in the back of the pub and makes toast after toast until everyone else goes home. Mzshek doesn't drink, or even have the capacity to speak, but he mouths the names of fallen comrades, long forgotten and a talented lip-reader can make out a grocery list of epic heroes.

The original sketch took me about ten minutes. The finished piece took about three, maybe four hours in photoshop, largely.

The characters and images are © 2011 to me.

Back to the pub.

There's a nearby temple to one of the old gods or other and they do a lot of services for the area as their sworn duty. The priesteses all have a pretty strange dress code and are fair lookers so nobody around the Steelwater complains too much when they come around.

Sheggat Ar'MoAl is their highest oracle. Her visions have a 99% accuracy rating, so it costs a fortune to avail yourself of her services. The down side for her is that she always gets horrible headaches after she has a vision. She stops by the Steelwater after these for a tea made of Monk's Hood, Nightshade and Hemlock. It's highly poisonous, so I can't tell you how it tastes or how she survives it, but she swears it tastes like a licorice, absynthe and virgin's tears smoothie.

Here's the original sketch. I decided the decorations on the cup were too distracting so they hadda go.
Pencil on sketch paper, it took about 45 minutes.

The above pic took about 5 hours in Photoshop.

A Special Visitor comes to the Steelwater.

So, being at the roadside near a nexus of all possible worlds, the Steelwater Pub often gets non-local patrons. This time, Gronk decided to stop by for a Gnomish Root Ale. The gnome clans take up a lot of the local real estate, and are fine enough people where they don't mind a little extraglobal commerce.
Gronk brought a couple friends with her and we're relatively certain that the companions were the ones responsible for the disappearance of half an appetizer plate, en route to its table.

The sketch was fast and extremely fun. The completed pic above took me about two and a half hours in photoshop, three including the development of the sign which says, "drink refreshing ROOT ALE."

Gronk, and her pal Harli and the stuffed kitten are © Katie Cook.

This image is © 2011, me.

Steelwater Reminiscences

 Our Bar Imp, Sooty (pronounced Sue-Tee), gets on well with some of the customers at the Steelwater. Being that she can never leave the place and doesn't earn a wage, she takes her rewards for working at the Steelwater in free drinks and the amorous intentions of many of the more frequent customers. This young fellow is a dragon of good standing who has some sort of professional position in a local company. He always has time for a quick pint, a good joke and Sooty.

The original sketch (seen right) took about a half hour and had substantial post work in photoshop before I went on to the sepia tone version above.

Meanwhile, back at the Steelwater...

 So, in the Steelwater, you meet all kinds of characters. This is one of them. This is Olinderia McAllistey, of Clan Bartaugh. She's a gnome and a falconer. Falconers represent the majority share of hunters in the highland gnome clans and this pretty little lady is a prime example. She's got her favorite little falcon in this shot. His name is Bleetle and he's a Noctuine Gryphon. They're night hunters and that's good for Oli, because she gets wicked harsh sunburn.

This is another twenty minute sketch, seen on the left, and it was pencil on sketch paper. The above pic took me somewhere between four and six hours in photoshop, due to some experimentation with technique.

A visit to the Steelwater Pub.

I had an idea to keep myself fluid, as an artist. It's something that suits my particular skills and workflow methods.

I invented a medieval fantasy pub named the Steelwater Pub. It's a place where people share their stories and company between wild adventures. The patrons are an interesting mix of lunacy and heroism and the staff are a stalwart band of people who are tied to the pub for whatever reason. I will draw the denizens of this pub when not working on other projects.

This pic is of an imp who got summoned to the bar to serve drinks by a previous owner who then died without freeing her. She is the only full time resident of the pub and her many years of customer service have mellowed her naturally sharp tongue. Nobody's certain what she looks like most times, but for the moment, this is her usual appearance.

Here's the original sketch. Mechanical Pencil on sketch paper. It took me about 20 minutes.

First post all over again

I've tried this blog thing before and not had much success, between feeling silly about broadcasting my thoughts and real life intruding on my ability to post regularly, it's been a mess, but I want to show you guys what I can do and I hope it works for all of us.



I did this piece to try to explore anatomy work better than I have been, lately. I have always had this difficulty with drawing characters in a vacuum. They seem to not be interacting with one another or their environment at all. I tried to address that a bit here, giving them both a common target to view out of shot.





Here's the original sketch of the same pic. It has been remarked that I seem to draw a lot of girls/women smoking but, largely, it's been because that's what I've observed of them. From my observations, more women seem to smoke than men and since I don't have a preference for drawing men, you get smoking girls and women.

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I have recently discovered the work of James Jean on the covers of the Fables comics and Graphic Novels. I have done these two pieces in the hope of trying to capture something of his visual work in my own.







I don't know how well I've captured his style but I feel like I've moved in that direction a fraction of an inch and that makes me happy.